Cultural Institutions

Historic Brattonsville, an open-air museum of the Culture and Heritage Museums of York County, tells the story of the interrelationship between people, land and community in the Southern Carolina Piedmont. Using the history of the Bratton family, their slaves, and neighbors as an example, Historic Brattonsville shows how the region grew and changed from the 1750s through the eve of the Civil War.

Historic Brattonsville is a 775-acre living history village that includes a Revolutionary War battlefield site, Walt Schrader Trails and features 29 historic structures and programs chronicling Carolina Piedmont development from the 1750's through the 1840's. Historic Brattonsville exemplifies the diverse social, economic, cultural and political history of the region since the mid-1700's, yielding a vivid picture of the South's rich heritage. Visitors at Historic Brattonsville see and hear evidence of the following, that: 1) Free and enslaved settlers brought with them lifeways that reflected their ethnicity and gave rise to cultural adaptations; 2) Agriculture, from subsistence to cash crops, was the foundation of Carolina piedmont settlement; 3) Developments in technology advanced the Carolina Piedmont plantation culture; 4) Southern society regarded education as an acceptable means of upward mobility; and 5) Politics and conflict were interwoven in daily Southern life.

Historic Brattonsville offers a variety of different programs for school groups. Each is designed to correlate with the public school curriculum, particularly for grades three, four, five, eight and eleven for South Carolina and U.S. history. These programs are intensive investigations into their subjects and have garnered Historic Brattonsville considerable recognition.